


Every Dream Has a Name, and Names Tell Your Story

by nutmeag83



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreams, Dreamsharing, Gen, Parallel Universes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-07 06:39:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7704346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutmeag83/pseuds/nutmeag83
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is trying to rebuild his life after he returns from Afghanistan, but he's been sent to the dull English coast, where he'll die of boredom before the month is out. But then he begins having dreams of an exciting life in London with an eccentric consulting detective as a flatmate. Why is he having these dreams, and how can he make them a reality?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**Author's Note:**

> This story has been updated to break it up into chapters. The story itself has not changed since its initial posting, though it has been further edited.
> 
> The title of the story is from “Dream Operator” by the Talking Heads.
> 
> I’ve played with the official BBC timeline just a bit. According to the [wiki](http://bakerstreet.wikia.com/wiki/Sherlock_Timeline), the events of “The Blind Banker” (TBB) take place March 23 through 27, and “The Great Game” (TGG) is March 28 through April 1. I wanted to give everyone a bit more breathing room. In my story, TBB dates are the same, but the events of this story take place from January 29 (when they meet, both officially and in my story [uh, sorta?] through late April. If my story were to continue, the events of Part 2 (TGG) would start April 25ish. 
> 
> I own nothing. I’m just playing in the sandbox for a while.
> 
> Un-betaed and un-Brit-picked.
> 
> Dialogue from “A Study in Pink” comes from the lovely and hilarious [Ariane DeVere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/43794.html). While much of it is the same as on the show, changes have been made to suit my story.

_“If you had such a dream, would you get up and do the things you believe in?” ~ “I Could Be Dreaming” by Belle and Sebastian_

John Watson flips the light switch and closes the door behind him. Home. _Really, John? Is this what you call home these days?_ An internal voice mocks.

“Oi! What’s wrong with it?” Oh great. Now he’s talking to himself. His therapist would _love_ to get ahold of that. John shakes his head to clear his thoughts and goes for the kettle, cane tapping rhythmically at his side. He needs tea. Badly.

It isn’t that his job is stressful—he is a GP in the tiny town of Swanage in Dorset, so he mostly deals with arthritis, broken arms, and hay fever―it’s that….well…it’s that his job _isn’t_ stressful. He’d been an army doctor for years and had spent three of those in Afghanistan. Now _that_ had been stressful—bombs, bullets, blood—John had never felt more alive than when doing field surgery. He hated to say he missed it. War is a horrible thing, and he’d never wish it on anyone. But, Christ, what he wouldn’t give to be doing something more exciting than explaining to Mrs. Addison for the third time that no, she doesn’t have shingles, it’s just a rash from her laundry detergent.

London is where he wants to be. Not Swanage. But the army therapist he had seen after his PTSD set in thought that London would overstimulate his sensitized nerves and had ordered him to coastal England. They wouldn’t even let him get a job in A&E. Nope. It was sniffles and rashes for the rest of his days. Which wouldn’t be too long, considering he’d fall into a boredom coma within the month. His first two weeks had been soul crushing. He didn’t want to admit, but he’d looked at his gun longingly more than once.

John rubs his brow and pours boiling water over his tea to steep, then sets about his oh-so-exciting routine of channel surfing and pretending to write in the journal his therapist had set as homework last week. He avoids reading or watching the news. Seeing what is going on in the UK’s big cities does nothing but remind him that he isn’t there, in the thick of it. He finishes off the evening with an unsatisfying mystery novel, then finally lets himself crawl under the bedclothes.

God, it’s only ten PM.

\--------

_He walks through the park, trying to ignore the cane and his slow progress. He is in London. His therapist had suggested a small town up north, so as not to stimulate the PTSD, but he’d fought it. He needed to be here. The more rural atmosphere would give him nothing to concentrate on. Nothing to forget what he’d been through. He would have spent his days reliving his past and wishing it were still the present. So he’d fought, and he’d won. Granted, if he didn’t find a cheap place to live soon, he’d be forced out of the city anyway._

_He is contemplating coffee when he hears his name being called._

_“John! John Watson!”_

_John turns to see a man on a nearby park bench, smiling at him. He looks vaguely familiar, but John can’t place him._

_“Stamford. Mike Stamford.” The man says. “We were at Bart’s together.”_

_Of course. Stamford. He’d been a good study partner. “Yes, sorry, yes, Mike. Hello, hi.”_

_“Yeah, I know. I got fat!”_

_John tried to prevaricate. “No.”_

_Mike doesn’t seem to care “I heard you were abroad somewhere, getting shot at. What happened?”_

_John shuffles awkwardly. “I got shot.” John really isn’t in the mood to talk about old times or the war, but it would be rude to just rush off. Not that he could rush. “Um, I was just thinking about a coffee. Want to join me?” He offers._

_Half an hour later, he is following Mike through the halls of Bart’s, being taken to some other bloke in need of a flatmate. He’d been going for self-deprecating with his “Who’d want me for a flatmate?” line, but Mike—earnest, helpful, lovely Mike—had chuckled and said “Well, you’re the second person to say that to me today,” and so here John is, at Bart’s._

_They enter a lab, and John takes a chance to look around. Much shinier than he remembers._

_“Well, bit different from my day,” he murmurs, fond memories of med school drifting to the surface._

_Mike chuckles. “You’ve no idea!”_

_A man sits at a microscope, engrossed in whatever he’s looking at. Must be the bloke Mike wants John to meet. The man begins speaking without looking up for more than a second._

_“Mike, can I borrow your phone? There’s no signal on mine.” The man’s voice is deep. Pleasant, even though his tone is distracted and emotionless. All John can see of him is a curly head of hair and hunched shoulders._

_“And what’s wrong with the landline?” Mike asks good naturedly._

_“I prefer to text.”_

_“Sorry. It’s in my coat.”_

_John understands preferring texting to talking on a phone. It’s annoying when you can’t see the other person’s face. He digs the mobile Harry had given him (“Take it,” she’d insisted. “It reminds me too much of Clara.”) from his pocket._

_“Er, here. Use mine.”_

_“Oh. Thank you.”_

_The man glances briefly at Mike, before standing up and walking toward John. He is tall, skinny. Dark curly hair sits on top of a face that is more alien-like than handsome. But his eyes…very light in color. They should look wrong, especially on a face so pale, but the intelligence in them distracts John from everything else. It seems as though the man takes in everything in an instant. John is pulled away from his study when Mike speaks._

_“It’s an old friend of mine, John Watson.”_

_John offers his phone, which the man takes before turning away slightly to begin typing on it._

_“Afghanistan or Iraq?” he asks, still typing._

_John frowns and tenses. Okay, how did the man know he had been deployed? He could just as easily have received his injury from a car accident or a fall down the stairs._

_“Sorry?” he asks. Maybe the man meant something else?_

_“Which was it―Afghanistan or Iraq?” The man looks up briefly from the phone before typing again._

_John looks over at Mike, who just grins smugly. Had Mike said something about John to the man? But how, they’d been together the whole time, and Mike had had no clue he would run into John before that._

_“Afghanistan.” He finally says. “Sorry, how did you know ...?”_

_Just then a woman walks into the lab carrying a coffee. The tall man glances at her._

_“Ah, Molly, coffee. Thank you.” He finishes with John’s phone and hands it back before turning to take the coffee. He peers at the woman for a second. “What happened to the lipstick?”_

_The woman, Molly, smiles awkwardly. “It wasn’t working for me.”_

_“Really? I thought it was a big improvement. Your mouth’s too small now.”_

_Ouch. That was a bit uncalled for, wasn’t it? Yeah, John could see how she’d benefit from a bit of color on her lips, but she is perfectly presentable without it. And if she works in a lab all day, it’s not like she needs it. Then again, the man dresses like a bit of a ponce, so apparently looks matter to him._

_The man turns from Molly, sipping his coffee as he walks back to his lab stool._

_“... Okay,” Molly replies before heading back to the door._

_“How do you feel about the violin?”_

_John looks at Molly (who is halfway out the door) and Mike (who is still smiling smugly, the prat), then realizes the man is talking to him. What? Did this man refuse to associate with anyone who didn’t like the violin or something?_

_“I’m sorry, what?”_

_The man begins typing at the computer he is sat in front of. “I play the violin when I’m thinking. Sometimes I don’t talk for days on end. Would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other.” He glances at John with an obviously fake smile._

_John stares back for a moment before glancing at Mike again. When the hell did Mike have time to tell this man about him?_

_“Oh, you ... you told him about me?”_

_“Not a word,” Mike replies, grin firmly in place. Something is going on here. He is being set up for something._

_John turns back to the man. “Then who said anything about flatmates?”_

_The man stands, putting on a coat. “I did. Told Mike this morning that I must be a difficult man to find a flatmate for. Now here he is just after lunch with an old friend, clearly just home from military service in Afghanistan. Wasn’t that difficult a leap.”_

_“How did you know about Afghanistan?_

_The man ignores the question, putting on a scarf and pulling out his own phone. “Got my eye on a nice little place in central London. Together we ought to be able to afford it.” He walks toward the door. “We’ll meet there tomorrow evening; seven o’clock. Sorry – gotta dash. I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary.”_

_John turns to watch him go. “Is that it?”_

_The man stops and turns, moving a few steps back toward John. “Is that what?”_

_John bites back a growl of annoyance. Who is this man and what makes him think John wants to room with him? “We’ve only just met, and we’re gonna go and look at a flat?”_

_The man’s face is blank. “Problem?”_

_John looks at Mike, who is **still** smiling. What the hell, Stamford? John decides to ignore his old mate, and turns back to the tall man in front of him. “We don’t know a thing about each other; I don’t know where we’re meeting; I don’t even know your name.”_

_The man stares at him for a moment before speaking quickly._

_“I know you’re an Army doctor, and you’ve been invalided home from Afghanistan. I know you’ve got a brother who’s worried about you, but you won’t go to him for help because you don’t approve of him—possibly because he’s an alcoholic, more likely because he recently walked out on his wife. And I know that your therapist thinks your limp’s psychosomatic—quite correctly, I’m afraid.”_

_Damn him. Yes, John knows the limp is psychosomatic. He’d got shot in the shoulder, not the leg. He’d been fine for the first week he was in hospital, then the limp had just appeared. No amount of therapy or even hypnosis had helped._

_Who is this man, to point out things that should be left unsaid? First, Molly’s lipstick, now, John’s limp. It’s as if the man ignores social niceties altogether. Or maybe doesn’t understand them? He is obviously highly intelligent and observant, to have figured John out in less than five minutes. John stops another growl. If this man has Asperger’s or something, he shouldn’t be mean._

_“That’s enough to be going on with, don’t you think?” the man continues, pulling John out of his thoughts. He turns and walks to the door again, begins passing through it, but then leans back into the room again. “The name’s Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street.” He winks (winks! Who **does** that?) at John, then looks at Mike. “Afternoon.”_

_John turns to Mike in disbelief. What the hell had just happened?_

_“Yeah. He’s always like that.”_

\--------

John is distracted all the next day. What a strange dream he’d had. The only vivid dreams he has these days are from Afghanistan—being shot at or doing field surgery. If he dreams of anything else—which, of course he does; he has to—he forgets them by morning. But this one, this dream of meeting this strange, amazing man, sticks with him as he sets bones and does physicals, as he eats supper that evening, as he watches telly and reads his book. It felt so real. Almost more like a memory than a dream.

When he’d awoken that morning, for a moment, he thought it _had_ actually happened. That he’d moved to London and was now going to see a flat with a potential flatmate, rather than sitting alone in his dreary flat in Swanage. He remembers everything. The smell of the lab, the smug grin Mike wore throughout the visit, the intelligence in the eyes of the man as he deduced John’s whole life.

But it isn’t possible. And it isn’t the fact that John is in Swanage and not London that has convinced him that it isn’t possible. It’s just that the _man_ isn’t possible. There is no way someone could read a person’s entire life in mere minutes. Granted, he’d gotten Harry’s gender wrong—and that was a strange thing for John’s sleeping brain to have conjured—but still…. Yeah, there is no way a person such as Sherlock Holmes (seriously, what kind of name is Sherlock?) exists. It’s just John’s overactive imagination staving off utter boredom and depression.

John goes to bed that night, hoping he can somehow continue his dream from the previous night. He wants to know more about the intriguing man in the greatcoat who had swanned through John’s dream as if he owned it.


	2. II

_John sits in his silent bedsit, trying to decide whether he is going to go look at the flat this evening. He’d checked his phone when he’d returned home the previous day to see what the man had texted, hoping to gain a clue, but had been stymied._

**_If brother has green ladder arrest brother. SH_ **

_What the hell does that even mean? Is the man a detective? Does he work for the Met? But he was in a lab, which suggests the man’s work is in chemistry or forensics. But if he is a chemist, why is he talking about arrests and ladders?_

_Unable to make heads or tails of the text, John had tried Google. The man’s name was uncommon enough to only get hits related to him. John had come across a blog and had spent the rest of the day reading through it, laughing at the man’s tunnel vision. He was brilliant, yes, but so focused on the details. Surely the man knew that no one read his blog. Even with John’s medical background, he’d had a hard time following it. The site probably had a very few but very faithful readers, and everyone else ignored it. Which was sad. Sherlock’s insights would be invaluable to so many people, but he didn’t care about putting it in an interesting way to draw people in. He cared only about the facts._

_John is intrigued._

_In the end, that’s why he leaves his room at half six to make his way over to Baker Street. He can’t **not** see the man at least once more. To try to find out just a little more about this fascinating deducer of details. _

_And so he finds himself in the living room of a flat that looks more like a jumble sale, wondering why the landlady thinks he wouldn’t want his own room. Sherlock had said flatmate, after all. He doesn’t seem like the type to do romantic relationships anyway. He has no patience for people, he says every single thing that comes to his mind, and he is apparently busy cataloguing over two hundred types of tobacco ash._

_Not that John is looking for a romantic relationship either. He’s a recently invalided army doctor with PTSD and a fake limp. The last thing he needs is a girlfriend. Maybe in a few months, when he’s on his feet again._

_The next few minutes are a bit manic, with talk of Sherlock’s website, the recent suicides in London, a gray-headed man storming into the room, and Sherlock cheering that it’s Christmas. Before John knows it, Sherlock is out the door and Mrs. Hudson (the landlady) is offering tea. John settles uneasily in a chair, wondering whether he should leave. He doesn’t even have Sherlock’s mobile number. How are they to coordinate moving in?_

_Then, Sherlock is leaning through the doorway again._

_“You’re a doctor. In fact, you’re an **Army** doctor.”_

_“Yes,” John replies, getting to his feet. Please, please, **please** , ask him to come. If he has to sit in another flat by himself, staring at the walls, he’ll go mental._

_“Any good?”_

_John grins. “Very good.”_

_A light in Sherlock’s eyes. “Seen a lot of injuries, then; violent deaths.”_

_“Mmm, yes.” Please._

_“Bit of trouble too, I bet.”_

_“Of course, yes. Enough for a lifetime. Far too much.” Take me with you._

_“Wanna see some more?”_

_“Oh, God, yes.”_

_In a moment, they are bounding down the stairs, giving explanations to Mrs. Hudson, who scolds Sherlock but looks at him fondly, and then they are in a cab and Sherlock is explaining his job (which John still isn’t completely clear on; he is a detective, but not for the Met and not really a PI—he consults? But he isn’t an amateur. [“There you go, you see – you were right.” “I was right? Right about what?” “The police don’t consult amateurs.”]) and then they are at Lauriston Gardens, and Sherlock is fighting with a detective sergeant and dragging John along in his wake, up the stairs of an abandoned building._

_Sherlock fires off deductions like he’s been in the room for hours not minutes before pulling John down to take a look at the body. John knows the man doesn’t need his help—he sees more than the Met does, and that’s their job—so there is no way John will be able to add to the brilliant deductions (“What am I doing here?” “Helping me make a point.” “I’m supposed to be helping you pay the rent. “Yeah, well, this is more fun.” “Fun? There’s a woman lying dead.” “Perfectly sound analysis, but I was hoping you’d go deeper.”). Then John is murmuring “Fantastic,” and Sherlock is asking if he knows he does that aloud, and then Sherlock is racing down the stairs, yelling about serial killers and pink, and then John is alone on the street, trying to find a taxi._

\--------

_Who the hell has arch-enemies? Only book and movie characters do. Then again, Sherlock is practically a book character, larger than life creature that he is. Of **course** he’d manage to gain an arch-enemy or two. He definitely has regular people who hate him (including most of the Met, apparently). But he is brilliant and observant and amazing, and John would never spy on him, even if he needs the money (“Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the week?”). And so he tells the man that he isn’t very frightening, and it must be true because his hand doesn’t tremble and his leg feels stronger than it has in months. Then the man is deducing him—of course Sherlock’s arch-enemy also deduces people—(“You’re not haunted by the war, Doctor Watson ... you miss it.”). And then John is in the black car again, looking over his texts again. How is this his life now?_

**_Baker Street. Come at once if convenient. SH._ **

**_If inconvenient, come anyway. SH_ **

**_Could be dangerous. SH_ **

_He can’t deny that the man—Sherlock’s arch-enemy—is right. He does miss the war. He **craves** the excitement and the danger and the impetuosity, of thinking on his feet and keeping his soldiers safe. If Sherlock can provide that, John will do anything for the man._

\--------

_John has just sent a text to a murderer, been called an idiot (more than once), and then been compared to the mad detective himself (“She said ... You get off on this. You enjoy it.” “And I said ‘dangerous,’ and here you are.”). They are now sat in the window seat of an Italian restaurant, waiting for a serial killer and awkwardly talking about relationships. The restaurant owner has also assumed Sherlock and John are a couple, and John is beginning to wonder why everyone is so eager to pair them off. Is it just that John is managing to get along with the difficult man, or is it something Sherlock is doing, or something John is doing, or what? And now John is sounding like he’s coming onto Sherlock, so yeah, no wonder people think they’re a couple. But that’s not what he means. He’s just attempting to get to know his new flatmate. He can’t deduce like Sherlock can. All he knows is that Sherlock is a mystery he can’t wait to solve._

\--------

_They’re running through the streets. Sherlock seems to have the whole of London in that great big brain of his. They catch the taxi, but it’s not the killer. (“Welcome to London,” Sherlock blurts out awkwardly.). Then they’re back at 221B, out of breath. This is the most alive John’s felt since coming back to England._

_“Okay, that was ridiculous,” John gasps, taking off his coat and going to lean against the wall next to Sherlock as they catch their breath. “That was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever done.”_

_“And you invaded Afghanistan,” Sherlock replies dryly._

_John can’t help it. A giggle escapes his mouth. He can’t stop it, doesn’t want to, the high is… **amazing**. Soon, Sherlock has joined in with his own deep laugh._

_“That wasn’t just me,” he replies in regards to Afghanistan. Then John realizes that they’re at Baker Street. “Why aren’t we back at the restaurant?”_

_Sherlock waves his hand dismissively. “Oh, they can keep an eye out. It was a long shot anyway.”_

_“So what were we doing there?”_

_Sherlock clears his throat. “Oh, just passing the time.” He looks at John. “And proving a point.”_

_John stills. “What point?”_

_“You.” He turns and shouts over to Mrs. Hudson’s door. “Mrs. Hudson! Dr. Watson will take the room upstairs.”_

_John tamps down a smidgeon of ire. “Says who?”_

_“Says the man at the door,” Sherlock replies arrogantly as he looks to the front door they’ve just come through._

_After bemusedly taking the cane from Angelo (Damn him. **Damn** Sherlock. Of course he would be able to do what three therapists and John had been unable to), they head upstairs to the flat, only to be greeted by the detective from earlier, Lestrade, and a handful of others who are tearing the flat apart. They’re saying it’s a drugs bust, and John is annoyed because of course Sherlock wouldn’t sully his brilliant brain with drugs, and then Sherlock is telling him to shut up, and really? **Really**? Sherlock would do that to himself? Has John been reading the man wrong all this time? Was he being blinded by insightful observations and chases through London, all for nothing? Was this man a fake? But he couldn’t be, because Lestrade knows why he has the suitcase, and John knows Sherlock didn’t kill Jennifer Wilson, despite what the others are saying. _

_And then Sherlock’s distracting John again with the phone and the case, and the phone is in the flat, but where is it? And then Sherlock is gone, and the Met is leaving, and John is alone again. He hates being alone. He reaches for his cane, turns to go, when Sherlock’s computer dings. It’s found Jennifer Wilson’s phone again, and, without another thought, John drops the cane, grabs the netbook, and bounds down the stairs. The Met may dismiss Sherlock, but he won’t._

_John wonders on the cab ride why he’s doing this. He can’t help Sherlock. He’s an invalid (who, admittedly, forgot his cane again) with no job prospects and a possible psychopath (high-functioning sociopath) as a new flatmate. He’s not smart, not Sherlock smart, probably not even Lestrade smart, and he doesn’t get on with people but hates being alone. All he has is a craving for danger and an illegal gun hidden on his person. And he has the decency to make sure Sherlock is okay when he hares off on his own._

_A bodyguard. He’s a bodyguard, John decides, just as the taxi stops in front of two empty buildings and an empty taxi._

_And then John is rushing through the halls, trying to find Sherlock. Where did they go? They must be in the building. But where? There are two buildings, did he choose the wrong one? Then he sees Sherlock and another man standing in a classroom in the other building, fluorescent lights spotlighting them in the dark. And John is yelling. Sherlock is going to do something very stupid, he just knows it. The other man is the killer. He’s giving Sherlock a pill. The others were poisoned (ingested poison). He’s going to kill Sherlock. Why is Sherlock reaching for the pill? No! But the idiot is apparently a drug addict, so really, John shouldn’t be surprised._

_The next thing John registers is a gun in his hand, a hole through the window, and a serial killer lying in front of a shocked Sherlock. John sprints from the room and out of the building. He needs to find somewhere to hide the gun and wash his hands._

_And then Sherlock is looking at him from the back of an ambulance, shock blanket half covering his shoulders, and John knows that Sherlock knows. Of **course** Sherlock knows. He’s brilliant. _

_“But he wasn’t a very nice man,” John protests, when Sherlock brings it up._

_“No. No, he wasn’t really, was he?”_

_Laughter bubbles in John’s chest, but he pushes it down. “And frankly, a bloody awful cabbie.”_

_Sherlock chuckles, then leads them away from the police cars. “That’s true. He was a bad cabbie. Should have seen the route he took us to get here.”_

_John can’t help himself. The laughter comes out. Oh God, the adrenaline rush! He can’t get used to this. This is bad. “Stop! Stop, we can’t giggle. It’s a crime scene! Stop it!”_

_Sherlock smiles. “You’re the one who shot him. Don’t blame me.”_

_“Keep your voice down!” They walk past Donavan, trying to look sane. John doesn’t think they succeed. And he can’t be bothered to care. “You were gonna take that damned pill, weren’t you?”_

_“Course I wasn’t. Biding my time. Knew you’d turn up.”_

_“No you didn’t. It’s how you get your kicks, isn’t it? You risk your life to prove you’re clever.”_

_“Why would I do that?”_

_“Because you’re an idiot.” But John says it fondly. Because they’re the same, despite Sherlock’s great brain and John’s army past and PTSD. They are two men who need, who **crave** , excitement and danger. And Sherlock smiles in a way that John hasn’t seen yet. It’s real, this smile. It’s conspiratorial. It says, “I understand you. I like you. We’re going to be very good friends.” And John smiles back, happy to know he won’t be alone anymore._


	3. III

John is glad he has the next day off of work. The dream had continued, somehow. And just as with the first one, it was vivid, and he remembers it more than he remembers his past two weeks in Swanage. It had been amazing. The adrenaline rush, watching Sherlock work, saving the mad detective’s life, giggling at the crime scene. He had never felt more alive. And yet…it wasn’t real.

But John can’t stop thinking about it. Finds himself standing in the middle of his flat, grinning into thin air as a memory surfaces. He thinks it would be helpful to write it out; maybe that way he can stop thinking about it constantly. His therapist did want him to journal after all. A dream journal counts, doesn’t it? And so he writes it out, the whole story. He calls it “A Study in Pink,” because if he were to publish it, that’s what he’d call it. Not that he would publish it. He isn’t a writer. Not really. He is just a former army doctor with a limp and an extremely dull job.

The limp…John wonders if what Sherlock had done to him in the dream could really happen. If he was made to forget about the limp, would it go away? He can’t test it on himself, and he thinks his therapist would look at him as if he was barmy if he suggested it. God, how he wishes it were true, though.

He glares at the cane leaning on the desk next to him. He hates that he doesn’t have enough control over his own body to get rid of a fake limp. The pen in his hand jigs. And he can’t forget about the tremor. The arch-enemy—no, Sherlock’s _brother_ —had pointed out that it had stilled when John felt he was in danger. That makes sense, and John can see why his brain had come up with that explanation. He’s always known that he needs action to keep from going depressive. It’s why he had joined the army in the first place. Harry used to roll her eyes when John wanted to jump off roofs and fly down steep hills on his bicycle, but he’d needed it, just to feel alive.

If only there was a way to get some adventure in Swanage. John looks out the window at the quiet afternoon street, everyone hiding away in their homes to avoid the winter chill. The winter chill that had brushed John’s cheeks as they had run the streets of London just the night before. But no, that wasn’t real. _Why couldn’t it be real?_

\--------

John is unsure what’s going on. He’s dreamed of being in London again. It was like a continuation of the previous night’s dream, but no action, no adrenaline rush. He had just moved his things from the bland bedsit he’d been in to 221B, had tea with Mrs. Hudson, unpacked as he watched Sherlock do who-knows-what to some chemicals in the kitchen (definitely not safe, but John liked it).

Lestrade collected Sherlock at some point to go give a statement and close up the case. John had managed to duck out just in time, saying he had business to take care of, and he’d cheerfully waved them off and gone for a walk.

So yes, not the most exciting dream, but still, preferable to his real life. He can tell that his life would never be boring, living with Sherlock, even when nothing was going on.

Strangely, the dreams continue. Every single night, John dreams about this other life. A life of London’s sounds and smells, chasing after criminals with Sherlock, fighting with his flatmate on how to label body parts in the fridge, getting a job, going on dates (really, was that wise? But oh, how he missed it). His real life is still frightfully dull, and he begins to live for the dreams, and he wonders if maybe that life is the true one, and this one is the dream life. But in his dreams, he never seems to remember a life in Swanage. Of course, why would he remember something so dull when he has Sherlock to keep up with?

And so John continues to wonder, to hope, that maybe the London life is real, and the Swanage life is fake, because it feels so much more vivid and fantastic and amazing. He tells none of this to his therapist, of course. David knows that John is having dreams. Well, the therapist thinks that John had one dream that he wrote out, and then just continued writing about the adventures of the mad detective he had dreamed up. David doesn’t necessarily approve; the journal is supposed to be about real life, but seeing as this is the first significant thing he’s written in it (before it had just been variations of “Nothing ever happens to me.”), he acquiesces and lets John continue writing up the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective, and his faithful blogger, John Watson (okay, he’d changed his own name in the stories; though David surely knows John is modeling the blogger after himself; they’d had the conversation about wish fulfillment and not wishing for what you can’t have).

John doesn’t really care what David says anymore. Not that he ever really did, but he cares even less now. He sleepwalks through his days and dreamwalks through his nights, his dreams giving him his only chance to _live_. He wonders what these dreams mean, if they are indeed dreams and not his real life. Why does he keep having them? It’s as if he’s living through a parallel version of his life. One where his life diverged when he went to Swanage instead of London. Once upon a time, John would’ve dismissed the idea outright, but now he’s not so sure. All he knows is that he wants London to be real. Wants Sherlock to be real.

Almost three months in, and he can’t imagine his life without the crazy man. But the man doesn’t exist. Or does he? What if it _is_ a parallel life? One John was meant to live if he’d had just a bit more spine and fought against Swanage. It’s the only thing John can come up with to explain why these dreams persist night after night. Especially when some are as ordinary as a normal day. Many of the dreams just consist of telly, take-out, fighting over Cluedo (John had pinned the game board to the wall with a knife after the fifth time Sherlock had blatantly disregarded the rules), and visiting with Mrs. Hudson; he’s even working at a clinic job just as boring as his real (is it real?) one is.

John wars with himself on looking Sherlock up online, on trying to find his website (Science of Deduction, the git) and seeing if the man could possibly be real. But he stops himself every time his fingers go to type in the address, afraid that it is all just a dream, that he’s somehow cracking up under the weight of pure, dull normality. And equally afraid that Sherlock really does exist, and that he’s missed out on months of adventures (but did he really miss out? He remembers it all, almost better than his supposed real life at times).

What if Sherlock is real, but isn’t having the same dreams as John? John wouldn’t know how to behave if he remembered a life with Sherlock that hadn’t actually happened. They are friends, and to see Sherlock look right through John as if he were a stranger, it might kill him. Or, what if Sherlock, too, is having the dreams, but meeting the real John disappoints him? John still isn’t sure what (dream?) Sherlock sees in him. He is helpful on rare occasions, but he mostly seems to exist to tell Sherlock how amazing he is and to offer an extra pair of running legs from time to time (the limp has disappeared completely, of course).

John might have continued on in this way indefinitely, worrying about what’s happening to him and what is real and what’s not, but is brought to a complete standstill as he glimpses the headline article in the newspaper that’s lying on the counter of the clinic one morning:

**Six Arrested in Chinese Smuggling Ring**

And it reminds him so much of the Black Lotus case from the previous week that he stops and picks up the paper. Had he read about this case before, then forgotten he’d read it? Because the details in the article are matching up perfectly with what they’d discovered in the dream case. But that doesn’t make sense, he’d had the dream the previous week, not this week, and the article said that the case had only been solved yesterday. Plus, he hasn’t read a newspaper (or watched the news on the telly) in months. Hates seeing what he’s missing. So where would he have heard about the case?

John turns to Amanda, the desk attendant. “Were you or the others talking about this last week?” He brandishes the paper in front of her face.

She looks a bit startled and confused, then shrugs. “First I’ve heard about it.” She goes back to typing, glancing at him warily a couple of times.

John reads through the article a second time. Yes, this is definitely the case from last week. Some of the details are different—it had included John and his date getting kidnapped by circus people/smugglers in a case of mistaken identity that still had John miffed—but much of it is the same.

The article doesn’t mention Sherlock, though, or DI Dimmock, who had also been on the case because of the homicides. So what did that mean? That John’s dreams were of a parallel world? But was Sherlock real, or did he exist only in John’s wildest (hah, how true) dreams?

\--------

That evening, John sits at his laptop, unable to decide whether to Google Sherlock. He partially chickens out, and begins Googling some of the other cases he’s dreamed about. Some don’t appear at all (but then, they were small and probably not newsworthy enough), some are there, but with radically different details—sometimes the perps aren’t caught, when, in the dreams, they had been; sometimes a different detail triggers the police into arresting someone; sometimes, the wrong person is caught, as if maybe Sherlock isn’t on that case, and therefore the Met hasn’t come to the correct conclusions—but sometimes, they are the same cases, the same details. Sherlock is never mentioned, though, and Lestrade only sometimes. Usually, it’s just left at “The Met” or “New Scotland Yard.”

John doesn’t know what to think now. This life that he’d been living in his dreams, is it real? Or, sort of real? There is no way he’s heard about every single one of these cases and incorporated them into his dreams. No way he could’ve come up with the level of detail that populates his dreams.

What the _hell_ does it all mean?

He goes to bed with more questions than answers, and spends a difficult night with Sherlock in a strop because he’s bored (“Find me a case, John. I _need_ a case.”). Sherlock flounces out of the flat around the time John announces he’s going to bed.


	4. IV

It isn’t until John is packing an overnight bag the next morning that he realizes he’s decided to go to London. He can’t take it anymore. He _needs_ to know. He doesn’t even bother looking Sherlock up online first. He can’t. He needs to do this in person. One way or the other, he needs to see for himself.

He reaches Baker Street around noon, and wonders how he should proceed. He walks slowly to the door, and, somehow (and somehow unsurprisingly) it looks _exactly_ like his dreams, down to the neighboring Speedy’s café and the brass numbers on the door (the ones that never made sense to him; why is the B on the outside door with the numbers? Shouldn’t it be upstairs on their flat door?)

He stares at that black door for at least five minutes, unable to move, now that he’s here. Should he knock? Would Mrs. Hudson recognize him? Would Sherlock? Does 221 house someone else entirely? The decision is taken out of his hands when someone steps out of a taxi behind him, the slamming of the door breaking his reverie. He glances back automatically, then freezes when he sees Sherlock standing behind him, a mixture of wariness and hope on his face.

“Sherlock,” John breathes without thinking, then winces. What if Sherlock has no clue who he is and thinks he’s a stalker or a loon for tracking him down?

The wariness is smoothed away, and Sherlock’s face breaks into a smile—the real one he saves for John and Mrs. Hudson, not the fake one he uses when he’s trying to get something out of someone. “John,” he answers quietly. “Took you long enough.”

John lets out the breath he was holding. “Oh, thank God. I don’t know what I’d’ve done if you hadn’t recognized me. So… so, it’s…you’re real?”

Sherlock gives him his “you know better, John” and “quit being repetitive” looks in quick succession before striding up to the door to unlock it.

John could _cry_ for seeing those looks, condescending as they are. The rush of feelings isn’t just relief that he’s not cracking up, but happiness that Sherlock is really here and that he _knows_ John. Joy that their friendship really exists, even if only in their heads. Which reminds John…

“So you’re having the dreams, too? Have you figured out what it means yet? My guess is parallel worlds, but why are we seeing that world? Why is it so vivid that it seems more real than my ‘real’ life? Have you been solving all of those crimes by yourself? Do Lestrade and Donovan and Dimmock and the rest of New Scotland Yard really exist? And Mrs. Hudson? I’m assuming yes. Are _they_ having the dreams, too?” The questions tumble out one right after the other as John climbs the oh-so-familiar steps up to their (Sherlock’s?) flat.

Sherlock enters the flat and takes off his coat (John wants to sob, seeing that coat in real life), then turns to raise an eyebrow at John. “I thought I got rid of your limp months ago,” is the only thing he says.

John huffs. Really? With all the questions John asks, Sherlock thinks his limp is the thing to focus on? Typical. “I couldn’t exactly cure myself the way you did before. Is ‘before’ the right way to refer to it? Please, tell me what’s going on, Sherlock. I thought I was going mental!”

Sherlock sighs. “I suppose I’ll just have to cure you again. You know I hate repetition, John.”

“Sherlock!” John grinds out. “Are you listening to me? What the _hell_ is happening?”

Sherlock gives John a longsuffering look. Oh yes, John remembers that look vividly. “Make some tea, will you?” Sherlock finally says. “I expect this will be a tedious conversation.”

John obliges without a thought. Can it really be considered an old habit if you’ve never done it before in real life? God, this whole thing is making his head ache. John shakes his head, scrubs out the kettle (thankfully he remembers that this is not the kettle he has decontaminated numerous times in the past few months), and sets water to boiling.

He comes to lean against the kitchen doorframe while he waits for the water and fixes Sherlock with a stare. He doesn’t need to say anything. His Sherlock can read him like a book, and he guesses that this one is the same, if he has the same memories.

Sherlock is perched on the back of his chair, as he so often likes to do when he’s explaining something, and one elbow rests on his knee, chin in hand, as he stares back at John.

“What made you come now, John? You are smart enough to have figured this out a month ago. Why did you wait?”

John laughs at this. He could be asking Sherlock the same thing. “I’m an idiot, remember?”

Sherlock just raises an eyebrow again. The kettle beeps, and John returns to tea making while he explains. “For the first week, I wasn’t sure what was going on. Well, I’m still not sure, but, in the beginning, I really thought I was just having extremely vivid dreams. My life is pretty dull. I’m a GP in Swanage—in _Dorset_! Sherlock, can you believe that?—and I thought this was just my brain’s way of keeping me sane. And then, of course, I thought that I had already cracked and was in a nuthouse somewhere.”

Sherlock chuckles, but doesn’t say anything.

John smiles and hands Sherlock his tea before settling into his chair opposite Sherlock’s. Huh. The Union Jack pillow is already there. He distinctly remembers placing it there himself the first time he’d sat in the chair. In fact, the living room looks to be set up remarkably like he’d seen it last night in his dream. Did Sherlock do it? He’s not exactly fastidious about his surroundings, but maybe he craves that bit of dream familiarity that John does. John’s eyes flicker to the wall, then stutter to a stop. It’s the Cluedo board, knife pinning it to the wall, just liked he’d done last month…He glances to Sherlock in surprise. Sherlock looks a bit sheepish, and John can’t help it. He laughs.

“I can’t believe this is real,” he finally gasps after a few moments of laughter. “It’s the most ridiculous thing that’s ever happened to me…”

And Sherlock finishes with him with a grin, “and you invaded Afghanistan.”

They smile stupidly at one another for another minute.

“So,” Sherlock finally says. “Nuthouse?”

“Right,” John replies, remembering his story. “So I worry about being a nutter for a few weeks, but then I can’t help feeling that everything is incredibly vivid. Not to mention, I can remember my dream life just as well as the ‘real’ one, and no one else is treating me like I’m barmy. So, for a while, I go back to thinking they were just entertaining dreams that inexplicably continued every night.” John shrugged. “And then, one day, the whole parallel universe theory popped into my head. It’s ridiculous, but nothing else makes sense.”

“Didn’t the news stories tip you off? You must have seen the arrests. The pattern of crimes,” Sherlock finally asks.

John’s laugh this time is a bitter one. “I’m living in Swanage, where the most exciting part of my day is setting a screaming child’s broken bones. Seeing what’s going on in London would just depress me.”

“Not even when you started thinking about the parallels worlds theory?”

“I’m not you, Sherlock. I can’t just believe something because it’s the simplest solution. My brain is set too far into reality. I’m too mundane to believe something like this could really happen. Not unless I’ve got proof.”

“Which you have now, yes? You believe it?”

“I have to, don’t I? It’s either that or go back to believing that I’ve cracked up for good.” John shakes his head with a smile, then remembers Sherlock’s original question. “I saw a newspaper yesterday, at work. They were talking about Black Lotus arrests. And, all of a sudden, I couldn’t bury my head in the sand anymore. Somehow, my dreams were connected to what’s been going on with you. I had to see it for myself. So, I packed up, and…here I am.”

John looks up from where he’s been studying his tea while he talks. Sherlock is wearing a soft smile John has never seen on him before. Fondness? Wonder? John can’t parse it. He looks away awkwardly and takes a sip of his tea.

“You must be less mundane than you think, John Watson, to be having dreams of parallel worlds,” Sherlock says softly.

“So I’m right?” John asks. “Do you know what’s going on?”

“I know the what, but no the why or the how,” Sherlock mutters bitterly. “It’s driving me mental. The most fascinating thing to ever happen to me, and I can’t figure it out.” He scrubs at his head, a common move when he’s frustrated.

John still can’t believe it’s all real. That he’s here. That _Sherlock’s_ here.

“But yes,” Sherlock says to his lap, head bowed, “it _must_ be some sort of parallel life that we’re tapping into. One where you chose to move to London instead of… _Swanage_.” He says the last word as if someone had just asked him to change a poopy nappy on a baby. “Why Swanage? You have always wanted to live in London.”

John sighs. “Idiot therapist said I was too fragile for the chaos of a big city. I fought it for a bit, but…just got tired after a while. Figured I’d stay in Swanage for a while, let them think I was healing, then head to London once I was back on my feet.”

“Hmm, I wonder if the trigger was you, then? Is that where the split happened?”

“I had a different therapist, in that other life. Maybe he was easier to bully than the one I got this time?”

Sherlock taps his lip thoughtfully. “Perhaps.”

“Do you think they’ll stop, the dreams…now that we’ve met in real life? In this life, I mean?” John asks.

“Perhaps,” Sherlock says again. “We’ll find out tonight. I suppose this means I’ll need to sleep at some point.” He pulls a face. “I started an experiment at Bart’s last night. I hate to leave it alone for so long. I should be there now, but I left something here.” He stands up, looking around for whatever he’d come for.

John isn’t sure how to react. Shoo Sherlock off back to Bart’s? Berate the man for not getting enough sleep? The latter only leads to fights and terse silences, and John doesn’t want that now. Nor is he ready to just jump in and act as he had these past few months (In his dreams? In another lifetime? In a galaxy far, far away?). Then a thought occurs to him.

“I could…go with you. I mean, I will need sleep for a while tonight, but I’d—I’d like to see Bart’s again. I won’t bother you. Unless your experiment doesn’t require your full attention, then maybe we can talk a bit more? I want to know what you’ve been up to this time… What should we call the timelines? Now and then? Earth 1 and Earth 2? Real life and dream life?” John waves a hand. It doesn’t really matter. “Anyway, I want to meet Molly again, say hey to Mike. I’m pretty sure I owe him a coffee… Maybe we can go get a Chinese on the way home? I’ve been craving it for weeks. How can I crave a restaurant I’ve never actually eaten at before?” John peters off. He’s nervous and rambling. He should stop.

That fond smile is back on Sherlock’s face again. “I’m glad you’re here, John.” As if realizing he’s coming precariously close to sentimentality, Sherlock abruptly picks up what he was looking for and goes for his coat. “Come along, John.”

As they’re heading down the stairs, the front door opens and in walks Mrs. Hudson.

“Oh, Sherlock, have you got a case?” She asks excitedly, watching John hobble down the stairs.

Damn, he needs to get rid of this limp. He’s not used to going down these stairs with the cane. And oh, he’s forgotten already that Mrs. Hudson doesn’t know him. His chest squeezes painfully. John looks at Sherlock, wondering what he’ll tell Mrs. Hudson. Surely not the truth. The woman is a saint for what she puts up with, but this would be a bit much, even for her.

“This is Dr. John Watson. He’s had a look at the flat and thinks it will do nicely.”

Joh finally makes it to the foyer. “What? Sherlock! I can’t just up and leave my job. I’ve got—“

“It’s in _Swanage_ , John. You’ve said yourself how hateful it is. You should be in London—in Baker Street—where you belong.”

He’s right. John doesn’t want to be in Swanage for another minute. “Fine. Right,” he concedes. “But I can’t move in right away. I’ll stay the night, then head back to get things sorted in Swanage.” He wonders if Sarah is still hiring.

John turns to Mrs. Hudson. “I’ll let Sherlock know when I’ll be able to move in. Hopefully within a month?”

“A month?!? John, that’s—“

John cuts Sherlock off with a glare.

Mrs. Hudson just watches them in amusement. “That’s fine, dear. Will you be needing the second bedroom?”

Oh, for the love of… This again. John tamps down the annoyance and pushes out a smile. “Yes, if that’s alright.”

“Oh, don’t worry; there’s all sorts round here. Mrs. Turner next door’s got married ones,” she whispers. John doesn’t even bother looking at Sherlock this time around. He’ll be just as oblivious as last time.

“I’ll definitely be taking the second room, Mrs. Hudson, thanks.”

“We must be off Mrs. Hudson. I’ve got fingers at Bart’s that need looking after,” Sherlock says, herding John to the door. “The second bed will need bedclothes, if you don’t mind.”

“Really, Sherlock. I’m not your housekeeper,” Mrs. Hudson replies.

“I’ll be fine,” John cuts in. “I was in the army. I can survive far worse than a sheetless bed.”

“Of course not, dear! I’ll put on the bedclothes, just this once.”

John smiles at her. How he’s missed her! “Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”


	5. V

The taxi ride is quiet. How is it possible to miss something that you just saw the night before? But John _has_ missed it. As vivid as his dreams are, it isn’t the same as actually being here, in the flesh. He gawps out the window for the entire ride, waving off one lone jab from Sherlock about playing a tourist. Nothing could upset him now. He’s in heaven. He’s finally home. And, apparently, he’ll be here for good, soon. He figures he’ll inform the clinic that Harry’s not doing well and that he needs to live near her in London to watch over her.

He’s still sorting through the details in his head when they arrive at Bart’s. Sherlock, heedless of John’s continued gawping and slow hobble, practically sprints for the door. “Come along, John. Those fingers have been left alone far too long. You can gawp later.”

John rolls his eyes, but follows his new flatmate through the doors.

It isn’t until they’re settled in the lab that John thinks to ask, “Have you tried asking M—“

“I’m not asking Mycroft for anything,” Sherlock spits out, turning away from his microscope to glare at John. “Especially not for something like this.”

John shrugs. “You never know. The government could be experimenting…” Sherlock continues to glare at him until he stops. “Fine. Fine. It was just an idea.”

Sherlock turns back to his microscope with a huff. Over the next few hours, during the between times when Sherlock is waiting for things to happen, John gets Sherlock’s story out of him.

His life had followed a closer approximation to his dreams (or, Earth 2, as John has taken to calling it) than John’s had. Their first case had been almost identical (except the end, of course; in Sherlock’s version of events, he’d managed to choose the correct pill, lucky prat), but things varied after that. And, apparently, while John dreams Earth 2 on a daily basis, Sherlock is given condensed versions during his more random bouts of sleeping. They concur that time asleep didn’t seem to matter. Sherlock had managed to catch up on three days of events during an hour’s nap once, and his version didn’t seem to be missing any details from what John was given.

When Sherlock is again ensconced in his work, John wanders around, hoping to find Mike on his break (he really does owe the man a coffee, or five, for introducing him [sort of] to Sherlock). He stumbles onto the man a few halls over.

“John? John Watson?” John hears, and he smiles.

“Mike Stamford?” He asks, knowing he’s not that great of an actor, but also knowing Mike won’t notice. “What the—? You know what, someone told me you were here now, I’d completely forgotten. How’ve you been, mate?”

They grab a coffee and end up having a similar conversation to the Earth 2 version, though instead of lamenting about London being too expensive, John can happily say he’s just found a flatmate.

He and Sherlock had agreed to go with the story that John had found Sherlock’s website online when he had a friend in need of assistance. Sherlock had solved the case via email, but the two had started conversing about Sherlock’s methods, and when John expressed an interest in moving to London, Sherlock said he was looking for a flatmate. They could’ve said they were old friends, but they knew enough of the same people through Bart’s that the timelines wouldn’t work.

“Plus,” Sherlock had added a little sheepishly. “I may have mentioned you a few times in front of Lestrade.”

John had raised his eyebrows. “Not on purpose!” Sherlock had defended. “You try living two versions of the same life concurrently and see how well you remember which one you’re in.” John had agreed that it would be difficult. He’d had a hard enough time as it was, and his two lives had been completely different.

“I can’t believe your new flatmate is Sherlock,” Mike says in disbelief, once John shares the made-up story. “Although, I can see how it would work. You do like a little adventure in your life, mate. And Sherlock Holmes can certainly provide that.”

John chuckles. “Truer words…”

They’re back at the lab now. Mike wants to say hi to Sherlock and congratulate him on finally finding a flatmate.

Molly is, unsurprisingly, in the lab when they enter. She seems to have a sixth sense for knowing when Sherlock is around.

John almost forgets, and starts to say Molly’s name, but he diverts in time. “M—my friend Mike says he knows you, Sherlock. What a coincidence.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. Yeah, he caught that. Of course he did. But the smile he gives Mike is mostly genuine.

“Finally found someone, eh, Sherlock?” Mike asks jovially. “How long have you been looking?”

“Just over three months,” Sherlock says tightly (not that anyone notices besides John). “As I said before, I must be difficult man to find a flatmate for.” John feels for Sherlock. He’s been repeating himself for the last three months. It must be killing him. Hopefully that double life is at an end, now that they’ve met.

Mike, being the wonderful person he is, realizes John and Molly haven’t officially been introduced (and that Sherlock has likely not breathed a word about his new flatmate situation to Molly).

“Molly! Meet Dr. John Watson. We were at Bart’s together, back in the day. John, this is Molly Hooper. She’s a pathologist here.”

John plasters on a friendly yet vague smile suitable for meeting new people. “Molly, how d’you do?”

She nods at him curiously. “You’re moving in with Sherlock?”

“Looks as though. London’s a bit steep for me on my own.”

“Harry couldn’t help?” Mike asks, remembering John’s sister.

John shudders. “God no. We get on less now than we did in school. Plus, she’s in the middle of a divorce. Very messy. Come to think of it, I would’ve been better off going to Clara for help. She always did like me pretty well.” He shrugs. “It’s all worked out, though. Well, mostly. I just have to quit my job and find a new one.”

“Why are you moving?” Molly asks, just a bit suspiciously.

“John likes boring things about as much as I do,” Sherlock cuts in dryly. He stands up and reaches for his coat. “He needs more entertainment than Swanage can provide. Lestrade needs us at a crime scene, John. Molly, I’ll look in on this in the morning. Please don’t move anything.”

Mike and Molly look a bit stunned. Not only is Sherlock inviting a supposedly near stranger to a crime scene, but he’s also said please to Molly.

John nods. “Right. Molly, nice to meet you. Mike, great seeing you again. I’m sure I’ll be around.” He waves to them both before following Sherlock out the door.

“Looks like I get to re-meet everyone today, huh?” John asks.

Sherlock grunts and hails a taxi. Obvious statements aren’t worth responding to.

“What’s today’s crime scene?” John asks as they climb in the taxi.

“Locked room. Woman in a tub with slashed throat and wrists. No knife in sight,” Sherlock murmurs while typing a hundred words a minute on his phone.

\--------

They reach their destination quickly and, of course, run into Donavon outside the house.

“Hello, freak,” she greets Sherlock, as always.

“I’m here to see Detective Inspector Lestrade.”

“Why?”

“I was invited,” Sherlock says tightly.

“Why?” Christ, are they going to replay the entire meet-up again? John really doesn’t know how Sherlock has survived the last few months without committing justifiable homicide. Here’s to hoping Sally hadn’t slept with Anderson the night before. He’d rather skip that part.

“I think he wants me to take a look,” Sherlock replies, even more sarcastically than he had the first time round.

“Well, you know what I think, don’t you?”

“Always, Sally.”

Sally catches sight of John. “Er, who’s this?” she asks, distracted.

“Friend of mine, Dr. Watson.” Sherlock turns to John, apparently content to play out the same scenario as last time. “Dr. Watson, Sergeant Sally Donovan. Old friend,” he adds dryly.

“A friend? How do _you_ get a friend?!” she asks. She looks at John. “What, did he follow you home?”

John takes Sherlock’s cue and repeats what he’d said last time. “Would it be better if I just waited...”

Sherlock lifts the police tape for him. “No.”

John hears Sally’s “Freak’s here. Sending him in,” that she mutters into her radio. He ignores her.

They, luckily, avoid Anderson on the way in. John takes a quick sniff as he walks by Sally, but she is wearing her usual deodorant, thank goodness.

John dodges past a few of the forensics team, gets into coveralls and booties without prompting, and heads to the bathroom with Sherlock.

“Who’s he?” Greg asks the moment John enters the room. John sighs. At least this is the last significant person he’ll be re-meeting today, unless Mycroft decides to drop by and kidnap him again (not completely out of the realm of possibility).

Sherlock is already studying the body and the room. “Colleague. Friend. Dr. John Watson,” he says distractedly. “John, this is DI Lestrade.

John holds out his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

Greg’s eyebrows crawl to his hairline. “John? _The_ John? The one Sherlock’s always blathering on about?”

“Um, yes?” He knew this was going to come off like an internet dating thing. Why didn’t they find another story? “He, uh, helped out a friend.”

“Right.” Greg stares at him.

“Is everything alright?” John challenges.

Greg glances at Sherlock, then lowers his voice. “Just not quite what I was expecting?”

John rubs his neck uncomfortably. “And what were you expecting?”

“He thought you were my fake boyfriend from Canada, John,” Sherlock calls over his shoulder. “Come over here. I want your opinion.

“Fake boyfriend―? Sherlock Holmes, did you just make a pop culture reference?” John is positively bursting with pride, which distracts him from Sherlock calling him his boyfriend (however insincerely it was meant).

“Possible. I’ve got all sorts of strange things stuffed into my head thanks to you. Now come look at this.”

Greg looks both confused and annoyed. “Wait, no, we have a whole team right outside,” he protests. Aaaand, they were back to the Earth 2 script.

“They won’t work with me,” Sherlock predictably says. John wonders why he’s doing this. Maybe he’s tired of fighting it, three months in. John would be.

“I’m breaking every rule letting you in here.”

“Yes ... because you need me.”

Greg stares at him for a moment, then lowers his eyes helplessly. “Yes, I do. God help me.”

“John.”

“Hm?” John looks at Sherlock, who gives him the slightest of winks, then looks over at the DI to ask tacit permission.

“Oh, do as he says. Help yourself,” Greg replies tetchily.

The rest of their time at the crime scene goes off without a hitch. By now, John knows what Sherlock needs him to say and he says it. And three months of watching his flatmate sniff around dead bodies has given John a bit more knowledge on what to look for. Greg seems just a bit impressed with him. John smiles inwardly.

His stomach growls as they leave the scene. “The Watson internal clock is alive and well,” Sherlock notes. “Dim sum? I can always predict the fortune cookies,” he adds cheekily.

John nudges his side with an elbow. “Git. And yes, feed me.”


	6. VI

“How much you wanna bet Mycroft abducts me on the way to the train station tomorrow?” John asks as they sit in their chairs later that evening. Sherlock is typing away on his laptop while John reads the paper. It’s just like it should be.

“If he offers you money again, take it this time. It could come in very handy.”

“I’m not going to spy on you, Sherlock.”

“I’ll feed you the information. It’s no big deal.”

“No! I don’t want your brother thinking I’m the type to spy on a flatmate.”

“Your moral compass really should be a bit more off kilter after three months with me.”

“I’m not doing it. Not even fake spying.” John shakes a finger at his friend.

“Why are you so dull sometimes, John?”

“I’m good for you, damn it,” John replies good naturedly. They grin at each other for a moment, then go back to their separate activities.

A couple of hours later, John’s yawns are too big to ignore, and he closes the book he’s reading and stands up. “I’m beat. I’m guessing I’ll be out the door before you’re even up tomorrow, so I guess I’ll…see you when I see you?”

Sherlock peers at him from over the top of his laptop. “Right,” he finally says. “Safe travels. Good luck with Mycroft. I’ll be in touch to find out the results of the dreams.” He stops, looks as if he might say more, but shuts his mouth and nods instead.

“Yeah. And I’ll be in touch about my travel plans.” It’s awkward. They’ve never really said goodbye to each other before. They might not see each other for days on end due to erratic schedules, but other than a “good night” or “see ya later,” they’ve never bid one another farewell. “Well, um. Good night. I’m…” John stops himself, but remembers Sherlock’s soft words from earlier that day (“I’m glad you’re here, John.”). “I’m happy you’re real, Sherlock.”

Sherlock gives him an almost smile and a nod. “Good night, John.”

John turns back when he hits the stairs to his room (his room! He’s _so glad_ to be home again). “And don’t stay up too late. I know you’re on a case, but we really should both—“

“I solved it two hours ago, John.”

John rolls his eyes. “Of course you did. Must’ve been when I was downstairs talking to Mrs. Hudson. Right. Well, congrats. Get some sleep.” John salutes Sherlock, then heads up the stairs.

“Horace?”

John laughs but doesn’t stop climbing. A cloak of familiarity settles on his shoulders, and the tension drains out of him. Why Sherlock is obsessed with his middle name, John will never know. “Still not telling you!”

\--------

The morning dawns bright and clear. The perfect spring day. John is halfway through his shower before he realizes he didn’t have an Earth 2 dream. All of his memories of Sherlock and London actually happened to him yesterday. Apparently their meeting worked. He wonders if that will be the end of them. Or if they’ll start again once John is back in Swanage. And he wonders again _why_ the dreams occurred in the first place. Maybe it was just the universe telling them that they needed to meet. That they are fated to fight crime together.

With no eureka moments forthcoming, John climbs out of the shower and finishes getting ready. He has just enough time to make tea and toast before he needs to head out (he’s built in extra time, just in case he’s hijacked by Mycroft on the way to the station).

He stops short when he enters the kitchen to see Sherlock making tea… _and_ toast? Sherlock rarely makes tea, and John thought the man assumed toast came crunchy and warm, straight out of the cupboard.

Sherlock nods at John and waves him to a cleared off space at the table. “John.”

“Sherlock,” John says warily.

Sherlock sets a mug of tea in front of John. “Toast will be up in a mo’.”

“Okay, am I dreaming of Earth 3 now?” John demands.

“I have no idea what you mean, John.”

John just looks at his friend with raised eyebrows.

Sherlock’s shoulders drop a bit. “I was in bed by midnight, and you know I don’t require more than four hours of sleep, so I’ve been up for a while now and then I got peckish so I decided I’d make some toast and then I thought I should make you some, too, so you’re not late for your train.” Sherlock ends his babble with a sip of his tea, which he quickly dribbles back into his cup, because it is, of course, still very hot.

John grins. “Thanks, mate.”

Sherlock turns toward the counter just as the toast pops up.

“Dream free, I assume?” John asks, picking up the paper on the table.

“Of course, as were you,” Sherlock states, usual haughty manner back in place. It’ll take some getting used to, but they’ll be back to normal in no time.

“Do you think they’ll be back once we’re apart?”

“Unlikely, but possible. I still don’t understand why it all began or by what manner, but I’m assuming it’s the universe’s way of getting things back in order, and now that we’ve met and you’ve decided to come home…”

“Been forced to,” John adds cheekily under his breath.

Sherlock shoots him a glare. “ _Chosen_ to move home,” he reiterates, “the dreams have no reason to continue. We may not be on exactly the same timeline as Earth 2—although, really, since the universe finds that to be the optimal timeline, then it is probably Earth 1 or even Earth 0…”

“Sherlock,” John gently reminds him. The man can go off topic so easily when distracted by an idea.

“But we should be close enough now to get the universe—or whomever thinks this is a good idea—off our backs.” Sherlock shrugs. “But, again, I’m as much in the dark about this as you are.”

“Really.”

“I have six possible ideas,” he concedes.

“That’s more like it.” John downs his (now cooled) tea. “Well, I’d better be off. Ta for breakfast.”

“Give Mycroft my regards.”

John picks up his bag. “Two fingered salute?”

“Finally! Someone here who dislikes my dear brother as much as I do.”

“I’ve got your back.” John nods at Sherlock and heads out the door.

“See you in a few weeks, Mrs. Hudson!” he calls once he reaches the ground floor. He has _got_ to get rid of this limp. The stairs take forever with a cane. Truthfully, though, just being back in London seems to be helping. The cane is more of an afterthought than it was before. Muscle memory winning over actual pain (even psychosomatic pain). He knows that the first time he has to chase after someone through the streets of London, the cane will be tossed to the side. That day can’t come soon enough for him.

Mrs. Hudson hurries to the foyer from her flat. “Can’t have a train ride without scones, doctor.”

John shakes his head fondly. Of course, mothering as always. “You are an angel, Mrs. Hudson. And call me John. Thank you, for letting me take the flatshare.

“Of course, of course,” she says, pushing a paper sack full of baked goods into John’s hand. “I can already tell you’re going to be good for Sherlock, John Watson. And I think he’ll be good for you, too.”

John grins at her. “Agreed. Keep an eye on him for me until I get back?” he asks, nodding up to the first floor.

She smiles in return. “Of course. Safe travels.” She waves him out the door.

He’s just about to take the entrance to the Baker Street tube station when the expected black car pulls up beside him on the street, Mycroft’s PA stepping onto the curb. “Dr. Watson, if you’d come with me, please?”

John is about to sigh and acquiesce, as he always does, when he remembers that he is not supposed to know Mycroft yet. He puts on a wary face.

“Why should I?”

The PA hands him her mobile. John stares at it for a moment before taking it carefully. “Hello?” He tries for a tremor in his voice, but isn’t terribly successful. It would help if Mycroft were at least a little frightening.

“There is a security camera on the building to your left,” Mycroft’s voice drawls from the phone. “Do you see it?”

John struggles to remember what he said last time. “Who’s this? Who’s speaking?”

“Do you see the camera on your left, Dr. Watson?”

John makes a show of looking around, even though he’s well aware of where all the CCTV cameras around Baker Street are. Sherlock made him memorize them early into their Earth 2 relationship.

“Yeah, I see it.”

“Watch.” The camera, as expected, swivels away.

“There is another camera on the building opposite you. Do you see it?”

John looks around again, already tired of this conversation.

“Mmm-hmm.”

The camera moves.

“And finally, at the top of the building on your right.”

Does he look appropriately spooked? Probably not. Should’ve practiced faces on Sherlock last night.

“How are you doing this?” he demands.

“Get into the car, Dr. Watson.”

John tries to look intimidated as he hands the phone back to the PA and slides into the car. The PA slides in beside him. John wonders what name she would give if he asked her again. Does she always use Anthea, or was that a one-time thing? He’s not bothered to ask since that first night. She’s quickly absorbed in her phone.

Across from them sits Mycroft, the smug bastard. At least John isn’t being forced to stand in a cold, empty warehouse this time. What had John said on Earth 2? Something about his phone…right.

“You know, I’ve got a phone. I mean, very clever and all that, but er ... you could just phone me. On my phone.”

“When one is avoiding the attention of Sherlock Holmes, one learns to be discreet, hence the car. Usually I’d be even more discreet, but I know you have a train to catch.”

John raises his eyebrows in pretend surprise. “You know about that, do you? What else do you know?”

“You don’t seem very afraid.”

Ah, this line is easy. “You don’t seem very frightening.”

Mycroft chuckles. “Ah, yes. The bravery of the soldier. Bravery is by far the kindest word for stupidity, don’t you think?”

John rolls his eyes internally. Everyone thinks Sherlock is the rude one. John’s pretty sure Mycroft is much more difficult to deal with, of the two.

“What is your connection to Sherlock Holmes?”

“He’s my new flatmate.”

“And you met…..”

“Online. I emailed him, asking his help for a friend. I was intrigued by his methods; we began an email correspondence. When I mentioned I was interested in moving to London, he said he was looking for a flatmate. I came to see the place yesterday, found it agreeable.”

“And now you’re moving in with him. Might we expect a happy announcement by the end of the month?”

“Who are you?” John demands.

“An interested party.”

“Interested in Sherlock? Why? I’m guessing you’re not friends.”

“You’ve met him. How many ‘friends’ do you imagine he has? I am the closest thing to a friend that Sherlock Holmes is capable of having.”

John tenses. _John_ is his friend. “And what’s that?”

“An enemy.”

“An enemy?”

“In his mind, certainly. If you were to ask him, he’d probably say his arch-enemy. He does love to be dramatic.”

John stares at Mycroft. He really wants to know what kind of people raised the Holmes boys. They are either extremely dramatic themselves, or extremely patient to put up with Mycroft and Sherlock’s antics. Then again, they did name their children Mycroft and Sherlock.

“Well, thank God you’re above all that,” he replies.

John’s phone dings. Damn, Sherlock has impeccable timing.

**Having fun yet? SH**

John smiles.

“I hope I’m not distracting you,” Mycroft says, on cue.

“Not distracting me at all.” He takes his time looking up from the phone before he pockets it.

“Do you plan to continue your association with Sherlock Holmes?"

“Umm, we’re going to be flatmates. Pretty sure I’ll see him on the regular.”

Mycroft pulls a notebook from his inside pocket, then opens it and consults it as he speaks. “After you move into, um ... two hundred and twenty-one B Baker Street, I’d be happy to pay you a meaningful sum of money on a regular basis to ease your way.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not a wealthy man.”

“In exchange for what? Information?”

“Yes. Nothing indiscreet. Nothing you’d feel ... uncomfortable with. Just tell me what he’s up to.”

The idea still makes John’s skin crawl, even though he’d known it was coming. “Why?”

“I worry about him. Constantly,” Mycroft drawls.

And this time, John does see the hint of concern in Mycroft’s eyes. He knows Mycroft does love his brother, and he knows the reasons Mycroft has for being concerned, but Sherlock is a grown man and capable of making his own decisions. The only time Mycroft’s overprotective meddling has come in handy was in his injunction that Sherlock get a flatmate within six months of moving into 221B. Without that, John and Sherlock never would have met on Earth 2. Or, maybe they would have, if the universe is so intent on correcting that error in this timeline.

So when John gives his reply, it’s slightly more sincere than his Earth 2 counterpart’s reply (but only a bit, because Mycroft is still an arse). “That’s nice of you.”

“But I would prefer for various reasons that my concern go unmentioned. We have what you might call a ... difficult relationship.”

John pushes down the laugh. Oh, the childish bickering he’s witnessed over time between the Holmes brothers… (“... and you know how it always upset Mummy.” “I upset her? Me? It wasn’t me that upset her, Mycroft.”)

“No.”

“But I haven’t mentioned a figure.”

“Don’t bother.”

Mycroft laughs insincerely. “You’re very loyal, very quickly.”

“No, I’m not. I’m just not interested.” Both more and less true this time. He’s more loyal, but less interested.

Mycroft takes out his stupid little notebook again. “’Trust issues,’ it says here.”

John’s thrown off. He’d forgotten about this. “What’s that?”

“Could it be that you’ve decided to trust _Sherlock Holmes_ of all people?”

“Who says I trust him?”

“You don’t seem the kind to make friends easily.”

John’s jaw tightens. Or maybe most people just aren’t worth the effort. “Are we done?”

Mycroft looks up at John. “You tell me. I imagine people have already warned you to stay away from him, but I can see from your left hand that’s not going to happen.”

Damned Mycroft. He didn’t want to go through this again. In any case, his hand hasn’t trembled since he’d reached Baker Street yesterday. He sticks with the script.

“My what?”

Mycroft nods at John’s hand. “Show me.”

John holds his hand up, but doesn’t stretch it across the aisle to Mycroft. Mycroft leans in instead.

“Remarkable.”

John pulls his hand back, trying to look as mistrustful as possible. Not a difficult feat when talking to Mycroft Holmes. He raises a questioning eyebrow, knowing Mycroft will read the expression.

Mycroft smirks. “Most people blunder round this city, and all they see are streets and shops and cars. When you walk with Sherlock Holmes, you see the battlefield. You’ve seen it already, haven’t you?”

“What’s wrong with my hand?”

“You have an intermittent tremor in your left hand.”

“I’m aware.”

“Your therapist thinks it’s post-traumatic stress disorder. He thinks you’re haunted by memories of your military service.”

John tenses. He’d rather not talk about PTSD with Mycroft again. “How do you know that?”

“Fire him. He’s got it the wrong way round. You’re under stress right now, and your hand is perfectly steady.”

John tries to not let Mycroft get to him…again. One of these days, he’ll put the know-it-all wanker in his place, and he hopes Sherlock is there to help.

“You’re not haunted by the war,” Mycroft continues, smooth as poisonous silk, “... you miss it. Welcome back,” he whispers, leaning a bit closer. He glances out the car window. “Time to choose a side, Dr. Watson.”

Of course, he manages to time it perfectly so that he finishes just as they approach the train station. Though really, they must have circled the area a couple of times, at least, because the ride shouldn’t take that long and traffic isn’t that bad this early on a Saturday.

“A pleasure,” John says sarcastically as the door opens for him to slide out. “Ta.”

Mycroft deigns to nod. “We’ll be in touch.”

“Can’t wait,” John mutters, hauling his duffle over his shoulder and beginning the trek inside the station.

\--------

John informs the clinic that he’s needed in London long-term to care for an ill sister. They’re sad to see him go—he was vastly overqualified for the position and easy to work with—but they take his lies for truth and send him off with well wishes. Mike knows a doctor looking for work outside the city, and John happily hands over his job within two weeks of returning to Swanage. Mike is also able to put out feelers for a job in London (his Earth 2 clinic’s position having been filled a couple of months back), and John secures one before he leaves for London.

It’s slightly better pay, but probably worse hours. He’ll see how it goes. He’s been able to save money out in Swanage, so he’s better off than he was on Earth 2, and he and Sherlock have the advantage of having already figured out their rhythm, so John is better equipped to juggle clinic work and detective work.

It’s with much more confidence that John makes the transition to 221B. Mrs. Hudson, of course, is overjoyed to have him move in, and Lestrade and Dimmock accept his presence at crime scenes with a sigh and a shrug. The rest of the Met react with the same mix of confusion and disgust that they had on Earth 2.

John doesn’t care, of course. Everyone could hate him, and he’d still be happy as a clam. He’s out of Swanage. His depression is all but forgotten, and his limp goes away within two days of moving in. He’s chasing after criminals and Sherlock, and he’s in the city he loves. Life couldn’t get any better.


	7. Epilogue

A woman walks into the office and lays a folder on Mycroft Holmes’s desk.

He barely glances away from the folder he’s currently ensconced in to ask, “Settled?”

“Yes, sir,” the woman replies. “They finished their second Scotland Yard case this morning. Total alignment should occur within a month.”

“Excellent.”

The woman continues to stand in front of the desk. Mycroft looks up, a look of bland curiosity on his face. He knows what she wants to ask, but doesn’t say anything.

The woman finally speaks, only a trace of hesitance in her voice. “There doesn’t seem to be any love lost between you and your brother,” she begins.

“Indeed.”

“But you care enough to want to save him.”

Even knowing it was coming, he hesitates. He does care, of course he does, but that’s not the persona he conveys at work. His lie is smooth and practiced. “Sherlock Holmes is a great man, and his work is invaluable to this country. It is only logical that I take the steps necessary to keep him alive.” He gives her a stern look.

“Of course, sir.”

“Inform my counterparts that Universe 42 is in alignment.”

“Yes, sir.”

The woman leaves without another word.

Mycroft Holmes smiles.


End file.
